Lower East Side

After a year and a half of grassroots activism, last week the Lower East Side's Local Spokes coalition released a wide-ranging action plan to improve cycling in the neighborhood [PDF]. The plan includes both actions that Local Spokes member organizations plan to undertake, like developing a bicycle safety curriculum for area residents and organizing businesses to provide bike parking, and those they intend to lobby the city for, such as more bike-share stations and better bike parking in NYCHA buildings.

The Seward Park Urban Renewal Area, or SPURA, is the largest undeveloped, city-owned area south of 96th Street. Located along the south side of Delancey Street at the foot of the Williamsburg Bridge, SPURA currently consists of five empty lots, the leftovers of a 1967 slum clearance project. Though mid-century towers-in-a-park style housing was built elsewhere on the site, these lots have remained vacant since the tenements were torn down 45 years ago, displacing a population that was two-thirds black and Hispanic.

After several months of public meetings and online feedback on bike-share station siting, NYC DOT is beginning to tour community boards with preliminary station maps in preparation for launching North America's most expansive bike-share system this July.

Manhattan Community Board 3 signed off on a package of safety improvements for deadly Delancey Street Tuesday night, according to State Senator Daniel Squadron's office. The plan, presented by NYC DOT in February, narrows the crossing distance at 14 out of 19 intersections between the Williamsburg Bridge and the Bowery, but doesn't substantially alter signal timing or traffic lanes heading to and from the bridge. It's the low-hanging fruit to prevent deaths and injuries on a street that sees a horrific amount of carnage.

Via Bowery Boogie, two photos of bike-riding NYPD officers writing up two other cyclists for running red lights at the corner of Bowery and Delancey.

The crosswalks will be getting shorter on Delancey Street -- one of the city's deadliest corridors -- thanks to a new safety plan from the Department of Transportation [PDF]. At 14 of 19 crossings between Clinton Street and the Bowery, neckdowns will extend the sidewalk into the street, making the distance across the extremely wide street a bit more manageable. While DOT found ways to add pedestrian space where it could, however, the department rejected options, some of which were very popular, that would interfere with the heavy traffic headed to and from the Williamsburg Bridge.

The Department of Transportation's plan to improve safety on Delancey Street will make it easier to cross the deadly artery, a press release from State Senator Dan Squadron's office confirms.

In the wake of the death of Dashane Santana, the 12-year-old girl killed by a minivan driver while she was crossing Delancey Street earlier this month, Lower East Side leaders are demanding safety improvements for the many pedestrians who cross this approach to the Williamsburg Bridge. Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Borough President Scott Stringer, State Senator Dan Squadron and City Council Member Margaret Chin have each called on DOT to take action to prevent one more life from being taken by Delancey Street traffic.

Children growing up in Manhattan's low-income communities are at significantly higher risk of being seriously injured or killed in traffic than their neighbors in wealthier districts, a new study from Transportation Alternatives finds [PDF]. Intersections near public housing appear to be particularly dangerous for children trying to cross the street.